


First Skate

by flaming_muse



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Gen, Jack Zimmermann's Overdose, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 05:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12881025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: Jack can't join the locker room banter before his first skate at Samwell.





	First Skate

**Author's Note:**

> Jack's pressure on himself and the way his friendships work are both interesting subjects for me, and here's a tiny snippet of my headcanons about him.

There’s a weight on Jack’s chest the size of a zamboni as he pulls on his skates for his first pre-season practice at Samwell. The pounding of his heart is as loud in his ears as the angry roar of the crowd when he misses a shot on clear ice, one that should have gone in but for a failing in his aim, in his focus, in him.

There is a familiar kind of boisterous chatter buzzing around him in the locker room coming from the rest of the team, both upperclassmen who all know each other and have played together for years and also nervous rookies trying to prove they fit in.

Jack can’t join in. He knows how most guys act in a locker room, a place where they’re almost as at home as they are on the ice, and there have been many times in the past he’s felt that camaraderie, too, but today he can’t make himself follow their lead.

_Grinning at teammates’ antics while taping up his stick, letting good-natured chirps roll off his back, echoing Kent’s blinding smile after a win, riding out the sour knot in the pit of his stomach until he reaches for the prescription bottle and opens the cap -_

No. He shakes his head and focuses not on memories or on the nicknames and chirps he should try to mimic but on getting his laces just right.

He can’t lose focus. Being at Samwell is too new. The pressure is too great. The stakes are too high to let loose.

It’s when he lets loose that things go terribly wrong.

_Waking up to too-bright lights and strange beeps and his mother’s tear-stained face -_

He knows the other guys are interested in him. He sees heads turn his way now and again as they get ready. He hears his name in whispers from across the room. He knows they’re waiting to see him on the ice, see if he lives up to his father’s name, see if he lives up to his own name, see if he lives up to the rumors surrounding his sudden and extended absence from hockey.

_Jack Zimmermann, Jack Zimmermann, Zimmermann, Bad Bob’s son, head-case, overdose, the top draft pick, Kent Parson, did you know he -_

Jack focuses on the familiar feel of his skates, the weight of his pads, and the way he’s learned to slow his breathing back to a normal rate. It’s almost automatic now, and he rolls his shoulders and lets his exhalation drown out the voices in his head and of his teammates around him. He doesn’t want to hear them. This isn’t about them. This is about him. 

The guys in the locker room may be on his hockey team, but they aren’t on _his_ team, Team Jack, as his therapist calls it. Not yet.

It’s their first practice, and he knows they’re waiting for him to fail. Again.

If he’s honest, a part of him is waiting for himself to fail again, too. It’s very possible that he will if he doesn’t work his very hardest to succeed. Even harder than he did before when -

But no. He can’t think about that, either. He has to be on Team Jack. He has to _be_ Team Jack.

He can’t let the pressure get to him. He can’t worry about not keeping up with the chatter, about not trying to ease the way to a better connection on the ice. That’s for later, if there is a later. He just needs to focus on right now.

It has to be okay that he can’t talk, can’t smile, can’t do more than acknowledge with a nod Coach Murray saying they’ve got two minutes to get the rest of their gear on and hit the ice.

He focuses on getting his helmet properly adjusted, on checking the tape on his stick, on keeping his racing heart from showing on his face. He focuses on breathing. He focuses on focusing instead of on people.

 _”There’s no I in team, Jack,”_ he hears in his old coach’s voice, judging him.

Jack knows teamwork is important. He knows the guys on his line will matter to his success. He knows he has to work well with them, listen to them, _know_ them on the ice and off. He knows he has to prove to them he’s not too much of a risk to be on the team.

But first he has to skate. First he has to get on the ice. First he has to prove to _himself_ that he belongs there.

He’s a team of one. Only if he gets that right can he find a place again on this or any other team.

And he wants it. He wants the team and the camaraderie and the thrill of the puck against his stick and the ice beneath his feet. It will be worth the effort to get back where he belongs. It will be worth facing his monumental failures and trying not to repeat them. It will -

A hand thumps down on his shoulder, firm but friendly, startling him out of his inner monologue. Some of his hard-fought focus flitters away, as tough to grab onto as a single snowflake in a storm.

Jack jerks his head up to see the goalie - Johnson - standing next to him. He’s got an open, appealing, and yet oddly forgettable face.

“Hey, don’t stress too much, Jack,” Johnson tells him. “You’re going to do great on the team, become a core part of it, make us all root for you. No question.”

“Thanks,” Jack manages to get out, barely able to spare enough air around that zamboni still on his chest to form the word. Feeling like a spotlight is suddenly on him, he struggles to hold tight to the calm he’d fought so hard to find.

Johnson pats him on the shoulder again. “And, remember, you aren’t actually the main character here. You won’t even be on screen for a couple of years. There’s plenty of time to find your place before then.”

Jack has no idea how to give him an answer, but Johnson doesn’t wait for one, anyway.

“Just enjoy the boys and the game,” Johnson says. “Enjoy Samwell. Play hockey. Your true character development can wait until later.” He gives Jack a big smile and walks off.

As a pep talk, or even as a conversation, it makes absolutely no sense. It’s both encouraging and weirdly dismissive at the same time.

But as Jack gets up to follow after him toward Faber’s famed ice, he is surprised to realize that he finds it’s comforting, anyhow.

He doesn’t know what it feels like not to be the center of everyone’s attention and judgment. He’s not sure if that’s even possible when his goals are so much bigger than being on a college team. If people aren’t watching him, he won’t reach the NHL. He will have failed yet again.

And yet, there’s something about Johnson’s words - and the absolute sureness with which he spoke them - that makes Jack able to breathe almost easily by the time the door swings shut behind him.

“Just play good hockey,” he murmurs to himself. He feels the world narrow to the promise of ice and speed and the familiar buzz of pressure and excitement that comes with pushing himself to be better.

The rest of his life, whatever it will be, will come later.

For today, there is only Samwell hockey.

_/\\_


End file.
